


In the Collapse of Crystal Cities

by TriDom



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha!Chris, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Mentions of Period/Heat Elements, Some Thoughts of Violence, Stand Alone for Now, Zombie Apocalypse, end of the world AU, hunter!Peter, omega!Peter, reverse verse, werewolf!Chris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 03:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriDom/pseuds/TriDom
Summary: The plague leaves the world cold and barren. Peter always thought of himself as a loner. If anyone could survive the apocalypse alone, he was certain it would be himself. However, after a month, the loneliness grated. When given a chance at competent companionship, who is he to refuse?





	In the Collapse of Crystal Cities

When the Tahoe was run dry, they started to walk.

The gas tank scraped hollowly against Chris’s leg. It was the only noise aside from their boots on the gritted dirt and the creak of the bag across Peter’s shoulders and the sling of his rifle. He hadn’t realized how quiet the world was until it wasn’t anymore. How power lines had made their own noise and cars, no matter how quiet, had left their footprints on the sound grid.

Now the power lines laid like dead pythons along cracked road ways, cars were like corn husks on the shoulders.

Mountains were jagged teeth in front of them and to the east, the curve of the land rose gradually until it blurred into the growing darkness of the sky. Peter didn’t know where they were. It was better than when he was alone at the beginning with a vague notion of going east.

Now all he had was a vague notion of going north as the sun set in a red band their side.

 

 

 

They met at a gas station in the Oklahoma panhandle or the lower edge of Colorado. He didn’t know how long ago. It seemed like months, but time passed strangely without clocks on every surface.

It was after everything had fallen apart, which had taken a short amount of time after the epidemic spread. It was all so very fragile like a sugar city run beneath boiling water.

He had coasted his G-Wagon on fumes to a gas station that looked like it could have been abandoned before. Only one of the windows was broken and the hoses were still on the pumps. The cash drawer was open and empty with only a penny and a quarter left. Chips and Rolaids were still on the shelf in sections.

Peter opened his bag and knocked what he could carry into the green canvas sack. Then he took cases of water, two on the shelves and three more in the back room, and put them in the cargo area of his SUV. Because he could, he took a pack of beer and a Coke from the broken freezers. He drank down the cool sugar as he walked through the back room in stale cool air, looking for anything else he could take. All he found was a pile of small animal bones with scant traces of fur. It had no smell, the meat eaten away by small rat mouths that had left impressions on the marrow.

When he came back out, he paused at the window, looking passed chalked images of snowmen and trees on the glass. A black Tahoe, so dust-covered it nearly blended with the landscape, was at the pumps parked nose to nose with his Mercedes.

Peter watched a dark-haired man get out and press the buttons of the pump, lift the handle, and hit it again. When it didn't run, he walked to the Mercedes and pressed the back of his hand to the hood. Peter set the beer down and undid the fastening on his holster beneath his jacket. The man didn't go for the cargo doors, though, he came toward the store.

A rusted bell jingled against the glass when he opened the door. He glanced up, then looked at Peter and paused with his hand still on the handle, glancing down at Peter's hand beneath his jacket. Peter felt the textured plastic against his hand and waited for the man to move.

“Do the pumps work?” Chris asked.

“No. They were electric I'm sure.”

The man nodded, gave him another look then went back out. He walked to the Tahoe, opened the back doors, and took out a crow bar, a gas can, and a small pump. Peter followed him, letting the door fall closed. The man walked around the parking lot before he found the gas hatch and crouched beside it. The crow bar scrapped against the padlock before it snapped with a dull ring.

Peter walked closer, conscious of the black military style jacket the man wore and the heavy weight of the Beretta on his hip. The man fed a hose into the hole and began to crank a hand pump. It squealed like a rabbit in a snare under the cold wind.

“Was there any WD-40 in there?”

“No. The tool section was empty.”

“It's always empty,” the man said, then he leaned farther forward and shook his head, pulling up the hose. “And this is too.”

He looked back, passed Peter towards the dull red Cobalt near the storefront.

“Did you check those tanks?”

“No,” Peter said.

The man stood up and took the pump and can towards the car. When he walked by, the air shifted against Peter's face. The root of his tongue barely tingled at the wood growth moss smell of an alpha.

He watched him crouch beside the car and open the fuel door before he started to crank the pump again, the hose began to spit gas into the plastic can, saturating the air with the hard smell.

The man looked back at him with yards between them.

“The Mercedes is yours?”

“It is,” Peter said.

“Okay. I didn’t want to take anything that hadn’t been left.”

“Where are you from?” Peter asked.

“Near Atlanta.”

“How was it there?”

He shook his head. “It’s wasted. I didn’t go into the city. You?”

“California.”

“North or south?”

“North.”

“I heard the southern end is gone,” he said.

“Mexico absorbed what was left. Have you heard anything about New York?”

“I haven’t been there, but I’ve met a few people who have. Before the planes stopped flying, they dropped napalm.”

Peter nodded. He had heard it before the radios stopped. He looked at the chalked window. They hadn't had Christmas before everything ended. He thought of talking to Derek the last time. He had asked what he should buy Talia.

“I’m sorry if you had anyone there,” he said.

“It wasn’t anything I didn’t expected,” Peter said.

“Still,” he said.

“How are the dead that way?”

“Thick,” he said as he stood and went to another car. “The farther east or west you go, the thicker they’ll be. They don’t migrate. They’ll stay near where they were bitten.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s what animals do,” he said. “They’ll follow the food supply, but they won’t track it. They’re human. They’ve evolved past that kind of hunting.”

“I see.”  

He watched the level of gas rising through the red plastic of the jug. His pistol felt heavier. The man was draining the only two cars in the lot. The noise of the pump grated on the air as Peter stared at the flat, homeless landscape. If he didn't get gas, he was stranded for at least ten miles, maybe as long as thirty. He went back toward the attached service garage and dug through the rust-covered tools, too corroded to be useful. The shriek of the hand pump came through the plywood walls as he dug through chests and his hands became covered in orange.

When he found a half can of grease, he walked back to the man and nudged his shoulder with it. He stopped and sprayed the crank down before he began again. It still grated but it was quieter.

“Thank you.”

Peter nodded and leaned against the fender.

The suction made an empty gurgling noise when it reached the bottom of the tank. The man cranked it a few more times before he stopped and pulled the hose out. The ten-gallon jug was nearly full. The dark level of it swaying as the man picked it up. Peter stared at it, then at the man's eyes. His face was handsome, but the color of his iris was nearly off-putting, too light, too blue in the monotone.

“Where are you heading?” the man asked.

“Why does it matter?” Peter asked.

He had a nice even voice. He was tall and well built, prepared. A low slur of something like guilt stirred in his stomach that he would be leaving him laying on the cracked pavement with his brain leaking from his skull.

“Because I can give you half of this, and you can go thirty miles,” the man said. “Or, you can come with me and we could go a hundred.”

Or Peter could kill him and he could take it all. He stared at him and as the moments passed, the lines along his eyes deepened.

“I don’t want to live in a world where people are killed for ten gallons of gas.”

“We don’t always have a choice.” 

“You can choose to contribute. Everything can be built back better or worse. Which way will you have it?”

Peter stared at him longer. The wind was frigid, numbing his ears. It howled around the eaves of the store and smelled like snow.

“Where are you going?” Peter asked.

“I don't know, but I won't go east. They're too thick there,” he said.

“But you’ll go anywhere else?”  

“Anywhere the population isn't high until we hear something from someone.”

“Something from someone.”

“I'll give you half if you want to go your own way.”

Peter stared at him, then back toward the two SUVs. Neither were good for gas, but his was notoriously bad. Even thirty miles was optimistic. Even if he took the entire jug, he wouldn't take him far.

And he would still be alone.

After weeks, it was more disconcerting than he expected.

“I have cases of water and a few other things in my car. Do you have room?” Peter asked.

The corner of the man's mouth barely lifted before he held out his hand. “I'm sure we can get it sorted. Chris.”

“Peter,” he said, shaking the man's hand, a small amount of warmth in the cold. 

 

 

 

Peter glanced at Chris as they walked across the barren ground. His insides ached, throbbing down into the tops of his thighs. He felt more blood seep into the rag wadded into his underwear. He looked away when Chris wiped beneath his nose, like he was trying to stop a cold.

“We can’t be much farther,” Chris said.

He nodded and wiped the sweat from his forehead as the ache passed deeper.

Then Chris's rough hand rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers pressing down into the stiff muscles.

“Do you need aspirin?”

“No. Save them,” Peter said, letting his neck turn with the direction of Chris's fingers as he closed his eyes and let Chris lead him while the ache built like a pressure head.

**Author's Note:**

> I will add to this story eventually.


End file.
